When you are building links to increase your website popularity
, whom do you link to? The question of where to link to increase ranking can be confusing. Logical thinking is needed to achieve link popularity in a natural way. Yes, indeed, Google page rank should come first and foremost. Page rank is part of the algorithm of Google's ranking in the search engine results. Other search engines use link popularity in their algorithm to evaluate your website as well. But page rank is only one of the 100 plus criteria Google uses to evaluate your web pages. Use the idea of page rank as a "tool" to help make decisions, there's no need to live and die by the results. Link popularity itself is merely one-way to improve your ranking.
In fact, there is a general fear of reciprocal linking to websites who inadvertently link to a "bad neighborhood" with penalties or page rank zero, passing on problems to you. Use your common sense. Is this a website you would want to visit or your visitors would want to visit? If the answer is no or you can't tell what the subject of the site is, make a note of it and keep looking. A website full of links with little content doesn't "make sense" because what benefit is it to you or your visitors? Of course you are going to link to your partners in business or maybe the small website that is doing a bang up job of selling widgets and providing widget information.
The idea of acquiring link popularity by linking back and forth to other sites to boost your popularity artificially is a popular method. But is it of value to your website? Ask yourself: Would you link to this site if link popularity in the search engines didn't matter? Would your visitor care about this link or find it helpful? Does the website have good content? Is this an opportunity for you to publicize your website by being listed there? Will this link cause you to spend a great deal of time worrying about it?
Is the link "just a link" or do you want a link from any site whose visitors care about what you have to say